The High Crusade Read online

  “Well, turn off the engines!”

  “No one can. I could not do so myself, now that the lock-bar is down. It will remain down until we get to Tharixan. And that is the nearest world settled by my people!”

  I tried the controls, gingerly. They could not be moved. When I told the knights, Sir Owain moaned aloud.

  But Sir Roger said grimly: “We’ll find whether that is the truth or not. The questioning will at least punish his betrayal!”

  Through me, Branithar replied with scorn: “Vent your spite if you must. I am not afraid of you. But I say that even if you broke my will, it would be useless. The rudder settings cannot be changed now, nor the ship halted. The lock-bar is meant for situations when a vessel must be sent somewhere with no one aboard.” After a moment he added earnestly: “You must understand, though, I bear you no malice. You are foolhardy, but I could almost regret the fact that we need your world for ourselves. If you will spare me, I shall intercede for you when we get to Tharixan. Your own lives may be given you, at least.”

  Sir Roger rubbed his chin thoughtfully. I heard the bristles scratch under his palm, though he had shaved only last Thursday. “I gather the ship will become manageable again when we reach this destination,” he said. I was amazed how coolly he took it after the first shock. “Could we not turn about then and go home?”

  “I will never guide you!” said Branithar to that. “And alone, unable to read our navigational books, you would never find the way. We will be farther from your world than light can travel in a thousand of your years.”

  “You might have the courtesy not to insult our intelligence,” I huffed. “I know as well as you do that light has an infinite velocity.”

  He shrugged.

  A gleam lit Sir Roger’s eye. “When will we arrive?” he asked.

  “In ten days,” Branithar informed us. It is not the distances between stars, great though they are, that has made us so slow to reach your world. We have been expanding for three centuries. It is the sheer number of suns.”

  “Hmm. When we arrive, we have this fine ship to use, with its bombards and the hand weapons. The Wersgorix may regret our visit!”

  I translated for Branithar, who answered, “I sincerely advise you to surrender at once. True, these fire-beams of ours can slay a man, or reduce a city to slag. But you will find them useless, because we have screens of pure force which will stop any such beam. The ship is not so protected, since the generators of a force shield are too bulky for it. Thus the guns of the fortress can shoot upward and destroy you.”

  When Sir Roger heard this, he said only: “Well, we’ve ten days to think it over. Let this remain a secret. No one can see out of the ship, save from this place. I’ll think of some tale that won’t alarm the folk too much.”

  He went out, his cloak swirling behind him like great wings.

  Chapter IV

  I was the least of our troop, and much happened in which I had no part. Yet I shall set it down as fully as may be, using conjecture to fill in the gaps of knowledge. The chaplains heard much in confession, and without violating confidence they were ever quick to correct false impressions.

  I believe, therefore, that Sir Roger took Catherine his lady aside and told her how matters stood. He had hoped for calm and courage from her, but she flew into the bitterest of rages.

  “Ill was the day I wed you!” she cried. Her lovely face turned red and then white, and she stamped a small foot on the steel deck. “Bad enough that your oafishness should disgrace me before king and court, and doom me to yawn my life away in that bear’s den you call a castle. Now you set the lives and the very souls of my children at hazard!”

  “But, dearest,” he stammered. “I could not know—”

  “No, you were too stupid! ’Twas not enough to go robbing and whoring off into France, you must needs do it in this aerial coffin. Your arrogance told you the demon was so afraid of you he would be your obedient slave. Mary, pity women!”

  She whirled, sobbing, and hurried from him.

  Sir Roger stared after her till she had vanished down the long corridor. Then, heavyhearted, he betook himself to see his troopers.

  He found them in the afterhold, cooking their supper. The air remained sweet in spite of all the fires we lit; Branithar told me the ship embodied a system for renewing the vital spirits of the atmosphere. I found it somewhat unnerving always to have the walls luminous and not know day from night. But the common soldiers sat around, hoisting ale crocks, bragging, dicing, cracking fleas, a wild, godless crew who nonetheless cheered their lord with real affection.

  Sir Roger signaled to Red John Hameward, whose huge form lumbered to join him in a small side chamber. “Well, sire,” he remarked, “it seems a longish ways to France after all.”

  ’Plans have been, urn, changed,” Sir Roger told him carefully. “It seems there may be a rare booty in the homeland of this ship. With that, we could equip an army large enough not only to take, but to hold and settle all our conquests.”

  Red John belched and scratched under his doublet. “If we don’t run into more nor we can handle, sire.”

  “I think not. But you must prepare your men for this change of plan and soothe whatever fears they have.”

  “That’lI not be easy, sire.”

  “Why not? I told you the plunder would be good.”

  “Well, my lord, if you want the honest truth, ’tis in this wise. You see, though we’ve most of the Ansby women along, and many of ’em are unwed and, urn, friendly disposed … even so, my lord, the fact remains, d’ you see, we’ve twice as many men as women. Now the French girls are fair, and belike the Saracen wenches would do in a pinch — indeed, they’re said to be very pinchable — but, judging from those blueskins we overmastered, well, their females aren’t so handsome.”

  “How do you know they don’t hold beautiful princesses in captivity that yearn for an honest English face?”

  “That’s so, my lord. It could well be.”

  “Then see you have the bowmen ready to fight when we arrive.” Sir Roger clapped the giant on the shoulder and went out to speak similarly with his other captains.

  He mentioned this question of women to me somewhat later, and I was horrified. “God be praised, that He made the Wersgorix so unattractive, if they are of another species!” I exclaimed. “Great is His forethought!”

  “Ill-favored though they be,” asked the baron, “are you sure they’re not human?”

  “Would God I knew, sire,” I answered after thinking about it. “They look like naught on earth. Yet they do go on two legs, have hands, speech, the power of reason.”

  “It matters little,” he decided.

  “Oh, but it matters greatly, sire!” I told him. “For see you, if they have souls, then it is our plain duty to win them to the Faith. But if they have not, it were blasphemous to give them the sacraments.”

  “I 11 let you find out which,” he said indifferently.

  I hurried forthwith to Branithar’s cabin, which was guarded by a couple of spearmen. “What would you?” he asked when I sat down.

  “Have you a soul?” I inquired.

  “A what?”

  I explained what spiritus meant. He was still puzzled. “Do you really think a miniature of yourself lives in your head?” he asked.

  “Oh, no. The soul is not material. It is what gives life — well, not exactly that, since animals are alive — will, the self—”

  “I see. The brain.”

  “No, no, no! The soul is, well, that which lives on after the body is dead, and faces judgment for its actions during life.”

  “Ah. You believe, then, that the personality survives after death. An interesting problem. If personality is a pattern rather than a material object, as seems reasonable, then it is theoretically possible that this pattern may be transferred to something else, the same system of relationships but in another physical matrix.”

  “Stop maundering!” I snapped impatiently. “You are wors
e than an Albigensian. Tell me in plain words, do you or do you not have a soul?”

  “Our scientists have investigated the problems involved in a pattern concept of personality, but, so far as I know, data are still lacking on which to base a conclusion.”

  “There you go again.” I sighed. “Can you not give me a simple answer? Just tell me whether or not you have a soul.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re no help at all,” I scolded him, and left.

  My colleagues and I debated the problem at length, but except for the obvious fact that provisional baptism could be given any nonhumans willing to receive it, no solution was reached. It was a matter for Rome, perhaps for an ecumenical council.

  While all this went on, Lady Catherine had mastered her tears and swept haughtily on down a passageway, seeking to ease her inner turmoil by motion. In the long room where the captains dined, she found Sir Owain tuning his harp. He leaped to his feet and bowed. “My lady! This is a pleasant … I might say dazzling…surprise.”

  She sat down on a bench. “Where are we now?” she asked in sudden surrender to her weariness.

  Perceiving that she knew the truth, he replied, “I don’t know. Already the sun itself has shrunk till we have lost view of it among the stars.” A slow smile kindled in his dark face. “Yet there is sun enough in this chamber.”

  Catherine felt a blush go up her cheeks. She looked down at her shoes. Her own lips stirred upward, unwilled by herself.

  “We are on the loneliest voyage men ever undertook,” said Sir Owain. “If my lady will permit, I’ll seek to while away an hour of it with a song cycle dedicated to her charms.”

  She did not refuse more than once. His voice rose until it filled the room.

  Chapter V

  There is a little to tell of the outward journey. The tedium of it soon bulked larger than the perils. Knights exchanged harsh words, and John Hameward had to crack more than one pair of heads together to keep order among his bowmen. The serfs took it best; when not caring for livestock, or eating, they merely slept.

  I noticed that Lady Catherine was often at converse with Sir Owain, and that her husband was no longer overjoyed about it. However, he was always caught up in some plan or preparation, and the younger knight did give her hours of distraction, even of merriment.

  Sir Roger and I spent much time with Branithar, who was willing enough to tell us about his race and its empire. I was reluctantly coming to believe his claims. Strange that so ugly a breed should dwell in what I judged to be the Third Heaven, but the fact could not be denied. Belike, I thought, when Scripture mentioned the four corners of the world, it did not mean our planet Terra at all, but referred to a cubical universe. Beyond this must lie the abode of the blessed; while Branithar’s remark about the molten interior of the earth was certainly consonant with prophetic visions of hell.

  Branithar told us that there were about a hundred worlds like our own in the Wersgor empire. They circled as many separate stars, for no sun was likely to have more than one habitable planet. Each of these worlds was the dwelling place of a few million Wersgorix, who liked plenty of room. Except for the capital planet, Wersgorixan, they bore no cities. But those on the frontiers of the empire, like Tharixan whither we were bound, had fortresses which were also space navy bases. Branithar stressed the firepower and impregnability of these castles.

  If a usable planet had intelligent natives, these were either exterminated or enslaved. The Wersgorix did no menial work, leaving this to such helots, or to automata. Themselves they were soldiers, managers of their vast estates, traders, owners of manufactories, politicians, and courtiers. Being unarmed, the enslaved natives had no hope of revolting against the relatively small number of alien masters. Sir Roger muttered something about distributing weapons to these oppressed beings when we arrived and telling them about the Jacquerie. But Branithar guessed his intent, laughed, and said Tharixan had never been inhabited, so there were only a few hundred slaves on the entire planet.

  This empire filled a rough sphere in space, about two thousand light-years across. (A light-year being the incredible distance that light covers in one standard Wersgor year, which Branithar said was about 10 percent longer than the Terrestrial period.) It included millions of suns with their worlds. But most of these, because of poisonous air or poisonous life forms or other things, were useless to the Wersgorix and ignored.

  Sir Roger asked if they were the only nation which had learned to fly between the stars. Branithar shrugged contemptuously. “We have encountered three others, who developed the art independently,” he said. “They live within the sphere of our empire, but so far we have not subdued them. It was not worth while, when primitive planets are such easier game. We allow these three races to traffic, and to keep the small number of colonies they had already established in other planetary systems. But we have not allowed them to continue expanding. A couple of minor wars settled that. They have no love for us: they know we will destroy them someday when it is convenient for us to do so, but they are helpless in the face of overwhelming power.”

  “I see,” nodded the baron.

  He instructed me to start learning the Wersgor language. Branithar found it amusing to teach me, and I could smother my own fears by hard work, so it went quite fast. Their tongue was barbarous, lacking the noble inflections of Latin, but on that account not hard to master.

  In the control turret I found drawers full of charts and numerical tables. All the writing was beautifully exact; I thought they must have such scribes it was a pity they had not gone on to illuminate the pages. Puzzling over these, and using what I had learned of the Wersgor speech and alphabet, I decided this was a set of navigational directions.

  A regular map of the planet Tharixan was included, since this had been the home base of the expedition. I translated the symbols for land, sea, river, fortress, and so on. Sir Roger pored long hours over it. Even the Saracen chart his grandfather had brought back from the Holy Land was crude compared to this; though on the other hand the Wersgorix showed lack of culture by omitting pictures of mermaids, the four winds, hippogriffs, and similar ornamentation.

  I also deciphered the legends on some of the control panel instruments. Such dials as those for altitude and speed could readily be mastered. But what did “fuel flow” mean? What was the difference between “sublight drive” and “super-light drive”? Truly these were potent, though pagan, charms.

  And so the sameness of days passed, and after a time which felt like a century we observed that one star was waxing in the screens. It swelled until it flamed big and bright as our own sun. And then we saw a planet, similar to ours save that it had two small moons. Downward we plunged, till the scene was not a ball in the sky but a great rugged sweep of landscape under our footsoles. When I saw heaven again turned blue, I threw myself to the deck in thanksgiving.

  The lock-bar snapped upward. The ship came to a halt and hung where it was, a mile in the air. We had reached Tharixan.

  Chapter VI

  Sir Roger had summoned me to the control turret, with Sir Owain and Red John, who led Branithar on a leash. The bowman gaped at the screens and muttered horrid oaths.

  Word had gone through the ship that all fighting men must arm themselves. The two knights here were in plate, their esquires waiting outside with shields and helmets. Horses stamped in the holds and along the corridors. Women and children huddled back with bright fearful eyes.

  ’Here we are!” Sir Roger grinned. It was eldritch to see him so boyishly gay, when everyone else was swallowing hard and sweating till the air reeked. But a fight, even against the powers of hell, was something he could understand. “Brother Parvus, ask the prisoner where we are on the planet.”

  I put the question to Branithar, who touched a control button. A hitherto blank screen glowed to life, showing a map. “We are where the cross hairs center,” he told us. “The map will unroll as we fly about.”

  I compared the screen with the
chart in my hand. “The fortress called Ganturath seems to lie about a hundred miles north by northeast, my lord,” I said.

  Branithar, who had been picking up a little English, nodded. “Ganturath is only a minor base.” He must put his boasts into Latin still. “Yet numerous spaceships are stationed there, and swarms of aircraft. The fire-weapons on the ground can blast this vessel out of existence, and force screens will stop any beams from your own guns. Best you surrender.”

  When I had translated, Sir Owain said slowly: “It may be the wisest thing, my lord.”

  “What?” cried Sir Roger. “An Englishman yield without a fight?”

  “But the women, sire, and the poor little children!”

  “I am not a rich man,” said Sir Roger. “I cannot afford to pay ransom.” He clumped in his armor to the pilot’s chair, sat down, and tapped the manual controls.

  Through the downward vision screens, I saw the land slide swiftly away beneath us. Its rivers and mountains were of homelike shape, but the vegetation’s green hues were overlaid with a weird bluish tint. The country seemed wild. Now and again we saw a few rounded buildings, amidst enormous grain fields cultivated by machines, but otherwise it was bare of man as the New Forest. I wondered if this, too, were some king’s hunting preserve, then remembered Branithar’s account of sparse habitation everywhere in the Wersgor Empire.

  A voice broke our silence, chattering away in the harsh blue-face language. We started, crossed ourselves, and glared about. The sounds came from a small black instrument affixed to the main panel.

  “So!” Red John drew his dagger. “All this time there’s been a stowaway! Give me a crowbar, sire, and I’ll pry him out.”

  Branithar divined his meaning. Laughter barked in the thick blue throat. “The voice is borne from afar, by waves like those of light but longer,” he said.